Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the
larger interval of the whole tone. But in the quaint jump of the third
the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.
The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened
on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is
characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But,
independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and
there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note.
The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But
the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a
half-tone. In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought
of as the fifth of the relative major. Moreover, it is familiar to us in
the Church chant. This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo.
Many of us do not know the true African manner, here. But in the major
it is much more barbarous. And it is almost a pity that Dvorak did not
strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody). A
fine example is "Roll, Jordan Roll," in E flat (that opens, by the way,
much like Dvorak's first theme), where the beginning of the second line
rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.
We soon see stealing out of the beginning _Adagio_ an eccentric pace in
motion of the bass, that leads to the burst of main subject, _Allegro
molto_, with a certain
[Music: _Allegro molto_
(Strings)
(Horns)
_Pizz.
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